NOVA scienceNOW: Carbon Sequestration

This video from NOVA scienceNOW explains how geophysicist Klaus Lackner and two engineers, Allen and Burton Wright, teamed up to develop a technology to capture an important greenhouse gas, carbon dioxide (CO₂), in the air. Modeling their design after a tree—and one of Lackner’s daughter’s science experiments—the team tested different materials, configurations, and coatings that together would act as leaves do to remove CO₂ from the air. However, instead of mimicking photosynthesis, their process uses a manufactured fabric that attracts CO₂ and pulls it out of the air for subsequent storage.